Vis-a-Vis

LALU PRASAD YADAV Bihar Cricket Association Chief versus SHARAD PAWAR BCCI President

"How can senior players perform so miserably, that too against Bangladesh? I would have scored a chhakka (six) or a duckka (two)."

"Right now what is needed is to lift the morale of the cricketers because they are too tensed. Cricket is a game of chance and luck."

EPILOGUE: The cricket team should be left alone to ponder over what went wrong, and where.

SENTENCED: To death, petrol pump owner Pawan Kumar Mittal, the main accused in the murder of Indian Oil Corpn's sales manager S. Manjunath on September 13, 2005, in Lakhimpur Kheri district of Uttar Pradesh. The other seven accused have been given life imprisonment.

QUALIFIED: Veerdhawal Khade, for the 2008 Beijing Olympics after winning the heats of World Swimming Championships in Melbo-urne. He is the first Indian to achieve the qualifying time for the freestyle race.

SENTENCED: To two years' imprisonment, CPI(M) leader and Kerala Electricity Minister A.K. Balan, for obstructing rail traffic during a party agitation seven years ago.

PICTURE SPEAK

LTTE chief Prabhakaran with Tiger pilots

A light aircraft of the TAF, believed to be a two-seat Czech-built Zlin Z-143, dropped bombs killing three SLAF airmen and injuring 20. The aircraft flew off from one of the three air strips in Tiger hideouts in the jungles of Vanni, north Sri Lanka and flew south-west to bomb the airbase near Colombo and returned safely. Their two-hour journey of over 400 km in complete darkness- the SLAF does not operate at night-displayed a high level of training. The strike is more of a psychological victory for the LTTE, which has been battered in recent months by aerial bombings conducted by SLAF jets.

Though rarely glimpsed, the LTTE are believed to have had light aircraft for at least a decade-they were ferried into Vanni as completely knocked down kits onboard LTTE merchant ships sometime in the mid-1990s.

While India publicly stays out of the conflict, it is helping the Sri Lankan Government quietly. Last August, it transferred to the Coast Guard patrol, offshore patrol vessel the CGS Varaha, to help the Lankan Navy patrol the seas off the island's east coast. The transfer of the 1,400-tonne vessel has been done quietly for the fear of upsetting sentiments in Tamil Nadu. Last fortnight, the Varaha sank two LTTE merchant ships off Eastern Sri Lanka. At least one of them was believed to be carrying aircraft parts.

-By Sandeep Unnithan

PICTURE SPEAK

TOAST OF THE SEASON: Aroon Purie (R) with Kevin Beatty

The Daily Mail General Trust (DGMT) is one of the largest and most successful media companies in the UK and has interests in national and regional newspapers and related digital operations, information and business publishing, exhibitions and radio. Besides the Daily Mail, ANL are also publishers of The Mail on Sunday, The Evening Standard, Metro, London Lite and Loot. The circulation of its national newspapers is around 2 million copies on weekdays and 3 million copies on Saturdays with a readership of around 6 million and 9 million, respectively. An FTSE 100 company, listed on the London Stock Exchange, its turnover exceeds £2 billion and it has a market cap of over £3 billion.

Its digital division's network reaches an estimated 25 per cent of all UK Internet users. DGMT is also one of the largest regional newspaper publishers in the UK under its division, Northcliffe Media. Operating from 18 publishing centres, Northcliffe publishes over 100 publications in the UK including 20 daily titles, 28 paid-for weeklies and over 50 free weekly newspapers. The portfolio has a weekly combined circulation of 9 million copies. Other commercial activities include contract printing, news retail as well as an international publishing portfolio in Hungary and Slovakia.

The announcement of the joint venture came on the concluding day of the INDIA TODAY Conclave on March 24. Aroon Purie, Editor-in-Chief of the India Today Group said on the occasion, "We are delighted that our first foray into mainline newspapers is in partnership with one of the leading newspaper publishers of the world-the prestigious Daily Mail Group. We share the same values of investment in editorial excellence."

Kevin Beatty, Managing Director, ANL, said after the agreement was signed, "This has been a momentous occasion in the long history of our company. Mr Purie, and your executive team, we thank you for helping us learn a lot in terms of the dynamism of the media landscape in India."

The India Today Group, is among India's foremost media houses bringing out a clutch of leading news and feature magazines, such as INDIA TODAY and Business Today. The company has a nationwide presence with its language editions of the INDIA TODAY magazine. Among the other titles it publishes in India are: Cosmopolitan, Reader's Digest, Men's Health, Good Housekeeping, Scientific American, Prevention and Harvard Business Review. The other companies in the Group are TV Today Network Ltd. which runs four successful 24-hour news channels, Thomson Press, the largest commercial press in India, HarperCollins India Ltd, a joint venture book publishing firm and Integrated Databases, a joint venture with Yellow Pages, Singapore.

PICTURE SPEAK

Rewa, the new postal steed

-By Nirmala Ravindran

PICTURE SPEAK

Abdul Karim Telgi

Judge Viswanath Angadi found Telgi and four others guilty under 14 sections of the Indian penal code in the multi-crore fake stamp paper case first registered at a Bangalore police station in May 2003.

Proceedings were conducted via video from Pune's Yerawada Jail where Telgi is currently lodged. Of the 40 cases relating to fake stamp paper scam being investigated by the CBI, this was the first case registered by police against Telgi and his associates on charges of selling fake stamp papers worth about Rs 42 lakh to a private firm, Sami Labs.

-By Stephen David

PICTURE SPEAK

The court in the park

Almost 10 years ago, Environment Support Group initiated the Save Cubbon Park campaign to fight against its encroachment by the Government. At that time, it was the high court that had come to the rescue of the green cause. However, the case, this time, is a little different.

-By Stephen David